Carmageddon is back!

Now its official news I can tell you guys - Stainless Software has got the rights back to the whole Carmageddon series!!  

There is a new Carmageddon game in the works, and for me, no more Square Enix legal threats!  There is also a possibility of the original game being re-released for modern Windows system which personally I am pretty excited about :)

So check out the new carmageddon.com and get involved on the community forums!

I'm not sure exactly what this means for OpenC1 - as you can tell development has stopped for a while and I'm working on other projects, but I've been talking to Stainless on and off for a while and they are pretty supportive which is great!

Thanks for all the feedback :)

1.3.1 is available - http://code.google.com/p/openc1/downloads

Changes:

• New setting "Disable culling" which should fix cars being partially invisible if you have an ATi card
• More logging (to log.txt) which includes files opened and crash information.  
• OpenC1.pdb included in zip file.  This means more detailed crash information will be generated to help diagnose problems.

Please submit problems to the Issues list at http://code.google.com/p/openc1/issues.  It will help to keep all problems visible :)

If you can replicate a crash in 1.3, please use 1.3.1 and submit your log.txt after the crash.

cheers!

OpenC1 v1.3 is now available for download!

• Download OpenC1 1.3 here
• Download OpenC1 Non-copyrighted data folder here

Read the instructions in the readme.txt file first.  Basically you have to extract the data folder to somewhere, then set the 'Data folder path' in OpenC1Settings.txt to point to it.  

You must read and agree to the license.txt in the OpenC1 download before using OpenC1.  Please note - as the license states, if you are affiliated with Square Enix you are prohibited from using OpenC1 or the OpenC1 source code.

Speaking of source code, OpenC1 is now actually open!  Full source is hosted on google code at http://code.google.com/p/openc1. If you are a programmer and interested in helping out, please jump in.

I'll be probably be taking a break from OpenC1 development to concentrate on other projects.  I feel like I've learnt almost all I will learn from this project, and plus its summer here in NZ which isn't good coding weather!

Merry Christmas :)

I've been quiet for a while here.

Luckily have been able to find great lawyers who are experts in IT and copyright.  They actually understand what OpenC1 is technically (they are the first lawyers I've dealt with in this whole case who have...) and how NZ copyright law applies to this case :)

As it currently stands, I have agreed to not infringe Square Enix's copyright in the future, but I will be releasing new OpenC1 versions shortly.

Check out the blog next week for an OpenC1 progress update :)

I've had a big increase in traffic since the last post, and I've seen some confusion from people who haven't been following the blog about what this project is and is not about.

As a (completely) amateur game coder and big Carmageddon fan, I put together a map / model viewer using file format specs available on the internet.  I had a lot of fun doing that, and so I just started implementing more features.  I didn't expect many people to be interested in what I was doing - it was mostly just for my own interest.

Here are the salient points:

• It is a purely amateur, fan-made effort
• I haven't tried to reverse-engineer any of the original code
• I'm doing it simply for fun - I don't profit in any way
• The OpenC1 engine I have developed simply loads arbitrary files from a folder and figures out how to display them
• The first release included the free, official, unmodified Carmageddon demo (which I know now was wrong - but again, I simply didn't think anyone would be that interested)
• It now won't require any original copyrighted content, thanks to the C1 community who have created their own cars and tracks.

I'm not making any comment on legal issues until they have been resolved.

I just received a cease-and-desist order from Square Enix (the holders of the Carmageddon copyright).  They allege that my "actions have already caused and will if they continue cause substantial damage to the value of Square Enix's copyrights and you will understand that Square Enix cannot allow this clear infringement to continue."

Square Enix hold the copyright to "underlying computer code, text, audio and visual aspects of the game [Carmageddon]", and copyright laws they quote say I cannot "use, reproduce or distribute" those works.

Obviously this is all a bit silly given we're talking about a game thats 13 years old and you can't buy anymore, but still, its a cease-and-desist letter.

So, right now I've taken the download link down.  I will be renaming the project to Cartastrophe OpenC1.  It will be distributed without ANY copyrighted material.

Square Enix require me stop working on this project and not release it in whole, part or any form.

The computer code for OpenC1 is MY intellectual property.  There is no part of my code which Square Enix has any control or copyright over.  I absolutely assert my right to work on it and distribute it as I see fit.